Sermon notes I Sam. 3:1-20 january 15

“Can you hear me now?” went the commercial. You’re not listening to me, says the aggrieved spouse. Don’t you see it, says the frustrated teacher. Samuel and Eli blindness and sight.Samuel (god hears/asked of God/name of God) is destined to be a prophet, a seer, but as a boy he has trouble understanding what he is hearing. Blind Eli certainly hears the boy awaken him in the middle of the night. (Ps. 139) We may be deaf and blind toward each other, and maybe even to our own selves, but the Pslamist tells us that the god who forms us knows us well.

The realization even blind Eli comes to see what is happening in this farce of a calling story.
Samuel was an answer to Hannah’s desperate prayer to have a child with her husband Elkanah. In a heartbreaking vow, she gives him over to the Temple and visits him with a new priestly robe.’
Samuel, the boy, is in religious service but not in the temple it seems, for his role will be the more public one of being a prophet. God is calling the boy but he doesn’t yet know how to recognize the voice nor what to do. Once Eli gets settled, he instructs the boy to both listen for the voice and how to answer properly. The words were frightful ones, but as a prophet Samuel's words never fell to the ground.

We are told that the word of the Lord was rare in those days. I rather think that is always the case, maybe especially when people claim that they have direct access to the word of the lord. Yet our relational god does speak. Our God leaves clues and traces of the Presence all of the time. How to listen for god? The great answer is consistent bible reading. Every time we examine the Scripture we can discover new depths in god and in our own character. Another way is to learn quiet contemplation with God, in the presence of God. We may listen carefully to each other. At times, someone may say something that breaks us out of the doldrums or opens us to a new thought. We could well be inspired to deeper richer understanding. I do think that God may speak in a whisper as well as a roar. The god who shares creation with us and fully capable of having nature , events, and out own words as as speakers for the divine as well. I have a nice series of books called listening for god that lifts up religious themes in fiction by great writers and then asks the reader to explore what they hear being directed to us in the pages.God’s call can be specific, but it is also a constant one for living out our Christian life.

Maybe we do not hear or see traces of god because we don;t want ot see what could be revealed. How to see the hand of God? Keep oneself alive to change, to color,to surprise. I like to use an image of the biblically-tutored imagination. We look at our world with Bible colored glasses. Yes, we see things that remind us of the Bible. I mean also that we see a biblical story or principle come alive in our very line of sight. Partly we see by asking ourselves if we see the hand of god in this. Of course, that also means that we realize that God is fully capable of working through the good but also fully capable of working to straighten out our own crooked lines. More than that, god continues to take frail, failed people such as Eli and later Samuel himself. We are more than a failing; we are more than the sum of our experiences; we are active agents for the continuing work of God to make this place fit for human habitation...and divine presence.